Advertisers Call for a Do-Over on FTC Blogger Rules

Online advertisers joined the blogger backlash against the Federal Trade Commission’s new guidelines that require bloggers, Twitterers and others to disclose any cash or freebies they’ve received to hawk stuff online.

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Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and a blogger, has questioned the FTC’s new blog disclosure guidelines.

Noting the new guidelines have created a “firestorm of controversy within the ad-supported interactive-media industry,” Interactive Advertising Bureau President Randall Rothenberg suggested the FTC rescind the new guidelines.

“These revisions are punitive to the online world and unfairly distinguish between the same speech, based on the medium in which it is delivered,” he wrote in an open letter to the FTC on Thursday. The online-advertising trade group suggested the FTC try a do-over, after opening up the issue for discussion with bloggers and online advertisers.

An FTC spokeswoman didn’t immediately have a comment about IAB’s suggestion.(See update, below)

The agency has been on a bit of a public-relations offensive over the past week, taking the news media to task for incorrectly reporting that the new guidelines could result in a fine of up to $11,000 for bloggers who break the rules. Bloggers don’t face fines, although if they don’t comply with the rules, they could eventually face legal action for ignoring FTC cease-and-desist letters.

FTC officials say they’re not trying to hound bloggers or Twitterers and aren’t planning on going after individuals, just the advertisers who might try to tempt them with freebies or cash.

“We will be focusing any enforcements on advertisers, not on individual endorsers,” said Mary Engle, the FTC’s associate director for advertising practices, on a call with reporters Wednesday. “We are not planning on investigating individual bloggers.”

The FTC guidelines marked the first major attempt by the agency to revise its endorsement and testimonial policies in nearly 30 years. The guidelines note that bloggers and online marketers must disclose any financial ties to companies that have offered cash or freebies for touting a company’s products or services.

The guidelines mostly lay out scenarios for what is appropriate and what isn’t. They don’t say that bloggers can’t accept free stuff — just that if they do, they have to disclose it.

UPDATE, Oct. 16: The FTC responds in a statement: “Although the IAB contends the FTC’s Endorsement Guides are unconstitutional, the Guides apply only to marketing and they attempt to illustrate some of the factors relevant to distinguishing advertising from editorial content. If particular communications do not in fact constitute advertising, as the IAB appears to be suggesting, then the Guides do not apply. Where the message is advertising, however, disseminators have an obligation to ensure it is not misleading. This includes, when it is not otherwise clear from the context, identifying when the endorser has been paid for the endorsement. Although IAB may disagree with the policy, nothing in this approach is unconstitutional.”